The Impossible Game: iPhone App Review

I meant to write this review yesterday, but I was playing The Impossible Game nonstop. For those unfamiliar with the premise of the game, this really means that I was grinding my teeth and wearing down the pad of my pointer finger as I tapped on my iPad screen over and over again to jump on boxes and avoid sharp corners as a moving scene rushed at my protagonist block. And when I say scene, I really mean a line with triangles and blocks scattered about.

The concept of The Impossible Game might not sound all that thrilling in and of itself, but this game is addictive. The interface is simple (think Pong simple), but that’s part its charm. Plus, the easy design allows the game to thrive when it’s magnified 2x to fill the iPad screen. It’s the most seamless 2x conversion I’ve ever seen on the iPad by far.

The Impossible Game gives users hope by allowing players to enter practice mode, a state which changes the music from one cool electronic track to another, and plants flags as checkpoints so they don’t have to start at the very beginning of the level every time they bounce into pointy triangles or overshoot blocks.

I tried all night to prove that Impossible is Nothing and even had a friend posting flags for me as I focused on navigating the landscape like a kid barreling through a play world, trying to avoid lava. The two of us finally beat the first level in practice mode, which allowed us to unlock another level, but it took 923 fails (the game counts the number of times you’ve needed to be regenerated) and neither of us could imagine tackling the game without the flags to help along the way.

Whatever the case, this game is fun in the “I-can’t-even-bring-myself-to-press-pause” sort of way, and being able to say you’ve beat it is probably as rewarding as holding the high score in Frogger at your local arcade.

Bottom Line: This app is everything it promises to be and well worth $0.99, except I do believe it’s not impossible if you want to spend hours perfecting your rolls and hops the way people memorized which directional combination they needed to eternally avoid the little guys who eat Pac-Man. Highly addictive and retro. 8/10